Posted on 08/02/2013 8:07:06 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
"When people don't see stuff on Google, they think no one can find it. That's not true."
That's according to John Matherly, creator of Shodan, the scariest search engine on the Internet.
Unlike Google, which crawls the Web looking for websites, Shodan navigates the Internet's back channels. It's a kind of "dark" Google, looking for the servers, webcams, printers, routers and all the other stuff that is connected to and makes up the Internet. (Shodan's site was slow to load Monday following the publication of this story.)
Shodan runs 24/7 and collects information on about 500 million connected devices and services each month.
It's stunning what can be found with a simple search on Shodan. Countless traffic lights, security cameras, home automation devices and heating systems are connected to the Internet and easy to spot.
Shodan searchers have found control systems for a water park, a gas station, a hotel wine cooler and a crematorium. Cybersecurity researchers have even located command and control systems for nuclear power plants and a particle-accelerating cyclotron by using Shodan.
What's really noteworthy about Shodan's ability to find all of this -- and what makes Shodan so scary -- is that very few of those devices have any kind of security built into them.....
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
um huh
sounds like some bad things could happen
could we use this to see what Mikey Moore is doing on his XBOX right now?
“Shodan” is the name of an evil super computer from the games System Shock and System Shock 2. Both probably came out in the late 90s. Quite good.
I have been on the Internet since its inception ... never heard of Shodon.
Admin
Admin
I think I must be using the beta version, Slodan. Smirk...
Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!
To get onto The Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping List you must threaten to report me to the Mods if I don’t add you to the list...
So they let us snoop on staff meetings? Meeting that everyone there would cut off their arm off to avoid?
OK just what I’ve been waiting for.
same. tho he created it three years ago and probably hasn’t made it very public
people should realize that however scary this is... it was only created by a small group (single guy?) as a hobby/test.
imagine what a large organization with an unlimited budget hell bent on accessing and collecting all possible data could put together...
then realize they already have it.
any agent can access it with a simple client called XKeyscore
I would not connect anything at home but a home computer to the internet.
Time to turn off all the Wind Turbines so the raptors can have a propeller-free weekend.
Thanks
You don’t want to know.
Interestingly (or not) Shodan was the name of the villain in a couple of cult-classic sci-fi/cyberpunk video games from the 1990s - System Shock/System Shock 2. SHODAN was an AI that went insane and began reprogramming (with malicious intent) cyberspace and all the systems she was connected to.
One wonders if the Shodan website’s name is a nod to that...
5 Tips to Protect Networks Against Shodan Searches
http://www.esecurityplanet.com/network-security/5-tips-to-protect-networks-against-shodan-searches.html
Very interesting. Thanks for the link.
Huh. What do you make of that? They can't all walk into a bar, can they?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.